Subject: REVIEW: CyberVision 64/3D and Scandoubler
From: [email-masked] (Eytan Kaziberdov)
Date: 17 Sep 1998 10:37:18 -0400
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews

PRODUCT NAME:

CyberVision 64/3D and Scandoubler

DESCRIPTION:

A Graphics Card, and Separate addon *Scandoubler For the Amiga and Compatible
Line of Computers

*ScanDoubler is only for the A4000 Series Video Slot.

COMPANY INFO:

Phase5 Digital Products
In Der AU 27
D-61440 Oberursel
Germany

TEL: +49 (0) 61 71 628455

HTTP://WWW.PHASE5.DE

LIST PRICE:

CyberVision64/3D $330.00 Canadian
Scandoubler      $160.00 Canadian
Total            $490.00 Canadian Or $380.00 USD

HARDWARE/SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS:

CyberVision64/3D

Any Amiga/Clone With a Compatible Zorro Slot II/III
68020 Minimum, 68030 or Better Recomended
2MB FAST Ram Minimum, 8MB+ Recomended
Amiga OS 3.0 or Better
3-4MB of Hard Drive Space

ScanDoubler

An A4000 VideoSlot
WILL NOT WORK IN A2000/3000 Video Slot

TECHSPECS:

CYBERVISION 64/3D:

135MHz RamDac

4MB EDO RAM

Zorro II/Zorro III AutoDetecting

Resolution of 1280X1024@75Hz NonInterlace
              1600X1200 Interlace

64Bit Internal/RAM DataPaths

MPEG1 Decoder Addon Module

SCANDOUBLER:

ScanDoubles Standard NTSC/PAL to VGA Compatible Frequencies,
All other ScreenModes are Passed through

Only Functions In A4000 Video Slot

COMPUTERS USED:

C=/A4000 Desktop
MC68040/33 Clocked at 30Mhz in A3640 Board.
2MB CHIP 16MB Fast
WB3.1/KS3.1
1.6GB HD IDE, 16X CDROM ATAPI IDE
C=1950 Monitor

C=/A3000 Desktop
MC68040/25 Clocked at 25Mhz in A3640 Board
2MB SCDIP CHIP, 16MB SCZIP FAST
WB3.1/KS3.1
(Buster-07, DMA-02, RAMSY-04 All works Fine!)
500MB HD SCSI, 2X CDROM SCSI
A2286 BridgeBoard ZII
ViewSonic 17g Monitor

C=/A2000
MC68030/68882 Both at 25Mhz
1MB CHIP, 4MB FAST  (2MB 32BIT FAST, 4MB 16BIT FAST)
WB3.1/KS3.1 (KS1.3 on Switcher)
A2091 HD/2MB ZII, A2052 2MB CARD ZII
120MB HD SCSI, 42MB HD AT IDE
Commodore 2080 Monitor

NOTE: I used the Viewsonic17G on ALL the Machines to do the Testing.

INTRODUCTION:

The CV64/3D (CyberVision64/3d) is a graphics card for the
Amiga line of computer with a Zorro Slot, It is Both
Zorro II (16 Bit Slot Found in A2000, Most A1200 Tower Kits)
and Zorro III (32 bit Found in A3000/4000 and very few A1200 Tower Kits)

If you have a Zorro II  expansion Hack on your A1000/500 (Bodega Bay, Xetec,
Phoenix, HomeMade) you should contact them to see if it will work.

The SD (Scandoubler Module) is a simple frequency doubler, and video
selector device. In english this means, the SD takes the Amiga NTSC/PAL Video
signal, and doubles it's Frequency So any VGA Monitor can View it. This DOES
NOT
FIX THE FLICKER when you are in interlace mode. It also serves as an automatic
switch between CV64/3D Output and Standard Amiga output, thus letting you use
only one monitor on your system. The SD ONLY FUNCTIONS IN A 100% compatible
A4000 Video slot.

I work in the Harware Applications Lab of a Leading PC Graphics card
manufacturer, Logic Analyzers, DSO's, VHDL, etc.. are a second nature to me,
so installing a video card should be a Joke... But..

I Bought the card in July of 1997, and due to certain reasons you will read
about, stopped using it about October of that year, I did the review because
there weren't any, so the A4000/A2000 part is the original expirience,
and the A3000 was done rescently.

I'm separating this to the individual computers, but make sure you read
all of this it covers some important information.

HARDWARE INSTALL:

THE A4000 W/CYBERVISION64/3D and SCANDOUBLER

Opening the A4000 is simple take out the mouse and joystick and remove two
screws in the rear and the case slides off.

The set the jumpers on the SD card to the proper setting, this is made
complicated because of the manual, I will get to this later on..

The CV64/3D and SD Module are 2 separate parts the fit into the same slot,
they
are only held together by the metal backplane and a small ribbon cable. There
is
a 4mm gap between the two cards. Now here is where the problem begins.

The card has to be installed as one unit, which is almost imposible, when you
try to insert the card, the scandoubler doesn't have enough force on it,
and doesn't want to go into the Video Slot, from this point I had tried using
a large flat head screwdriver to force in the scandoubler, but it would just
not fit. I only had two ways to go, either disassemble the entire A4000 and
built the CV64/3D in place, then assemble the computer around it.. or
find a way to fix the two cards together out side so they act as one
solid card.

To make a real long story short, I ended up taking on of the plastic guides
from the A4000 case (these are the brown plasitc holders on the Zorro Slots
that
hold the end of the card that's on the front side of the amiga.)
I snipped off both it's ends and fitted it between the two parts, and then
used
4 drops of Crazy Glue to hold it in place. Well the board still didn't go in
easily, it took way too much force, the last problem was that the bords needed
to have an angle shaved into them on either side of the fingers, because they
were too perfect a fit.

I turned on the computer, and there was no video output. I rechecked the
scandoubler's jumpers, and even began to follow the ciruit, and saw that they
were set fine. I removed the two parts and installed the scandoubler on it's
own and reset the jumpers.

Still there was no video, the Amiga's output was giving video as it was
expected.
I then removed it again and went over the jumpers to be sure that they were
okay, and when I went to install it again my finger nail pulled of a
SMT capacitor (not to mention my finger nail split in half...PAIN!), after
20 Miniutes of dancing around, yelling, and bleeding..

I decided it was time to give up, and go to the dealer. The dealer is a
friend of mine, but because of the broken cap, and a trace was pulled from
the board he couldn't exchange it. After calculating cost of shipping
repair etc..

I just ordered another one, since having this one repaired/shipped would have
cost close to the amount of a new unit.

4 Weeks later...

I installed the unit and everything went just fine this time, the software
went
in okay etc. Just there was one problem, I had a color bleed on the red signal
from any mode that was being scandoubled, this made PAL/NTSC completely
useless.

Three Emails to Phase5 Tech support resulted in No response. I contacted them
by phone, and they said it was defective and to return it. I returned it to my
dealer who got another one less than 2 Days later, it suffered from the exact
same problem, and the supplier had no more in stock and would have to order,
which would take anywhere from 6-8Weeks. I was frustrated and took it
anyways..

THE A3000 With ONLY CyberVision64/3D:

This was very strait forward, I installed the card and software it went quite
well. The scandoubler DOES NOT WORK with the A3000 or A2000 VideoSlot so you'd
have to use two monitors or a monitor switchbox..

THE A2000 With ONLY CyberVision64/3D:

This had a few problems, first I was left with only 2MB of Config Space
which shouldn't be a problem the manual says the card should only config
2MB in this senario, this was not the case I had to remove 2MB of ram
to get the card to show up as working In the Boot Menu Diagnostics.

Same as before The scandoubler DOES NOT WORK with the A3000 or A2000 VideoSlot
so you'd have to use two monitors or a monitor switchbox..

SOFTWARE INSTALL:
_________________

The Software install is pretty strait forward it uses the standard INSTALLER,
just make sure you read the manual once over before you install the software,
as well when you are being asked the questions read them carefully, some of
them are phrased in a negative sense.

The Board Comes with the CyberGraphx V3 RTG/API, which an excellent peice of
software it's very bugfree, take a look at  HTTP://www.vgr.com for more info.

The Only Issue was with the A2000, I had to use enforcer in the
Startup-Sequence
to get the card to work properly. but this usually happens with 020' and
030's.

The Software has a Picture Viewer, MPEG Player, and a few Demo's Showing
off the 3D capailities of the S3 Virge3D chip.

FUNCTIONALITY:

The CyberVision64/3D part of the combination worked flawlessy. It Had a Crisp
and Clean Picture right up to 1600X1200 on my Viewsonic 17G.
There was no real noticeable Speed Differences in 8/16/24Bit, running
workbench
(moving windows around etc..), on all the Amigas. This is mainly because most
of the hard work is blitter related, and very little bus activity.
Of course you can easily expect a speed decrease on the Zorro II VS Zorro III
when playing back an animation, a game etc.. This is just the
"nature of the bus", and would be expected with any card.

On The A4000 there was only a slight improvement,about 15-20%, in games
running
in 320X200 8Bpp with CyberGraphics VS AGA, My guess is that if I had an '060
it
would be a larger improvement.

The A3000 performed almost Identically to the A4000, but of course without any
sort of signal switcher I had to resort to phsically switching the monitor
cable to the ECS output when I went to play an old game, or needed the
Boot Menu.

As a side Note my Viewsonic monitor has 2 inputs which you select from the
front panel, this would be a nice workaround for the lack of a switcher
if you have a scandoubler/FlickerFixer.

The CyberVision64/3D has a 3D Virge 3D Chip, this chip contains ALL the
nessary
3D functions, but this chip is SLOW in the 3D department. Still any help to
the
processor will add a few FPS in a game, unfortunately there's almost no
software
that supports it.

So far I've only seen Tornado3D, ADescent, and I'm not too sure but CyberGL
might support it by now..

DOCUMENTATION/SUPPORT:

This documentaion is poor, it seems as though it was written by someone
who knows the hardware very well, and therefore takes for granted all the
simple steps to install the card.

In the Scandoubler Manual the jumper Setting Table is very confusing, but this
seems like more of a german to english translation problem.

I rescently gave my brother my A2000 to replace his dead A1000, and I gave him
the Cybervision 64/3D, I remebered to tell him to remove the 2MB ram before
installing the video card, but I forgot to tell him about enforcer. He's a
programmer on X86 Boxes. He spent about 3 Hours trying to figure out what
Enforcer was, until he called me and asked what it is...
This is a very good point on how the documentation suffers.
Enforcer was sitting on the install disk, yet he had no clue what he was
looking for. Was it a Harware addon? Was it a software patch?
A few extra lines in the manual describing how to install it would have
helped.

Phase5 Makes Excellent Hardware, but their technical support is horrible.
Their Manual points you to their website for support, and all you can find
there is a few outdated problems or solutions for the CyberStorm MK2.

LIKES/DISLIKES:

The CyberVision64/3D is an excellent video card It performs extremely well,
while it was installed in my computer it worked perfect. The Image quality
was good even at 1600X1200, there was very little ghosting or bleeding.

It comes with the CyberGfx V3 which I also find to be an excellent product,
and is very proven product.

Since the Scandoubler only works on the A4000, there should have been a
switcher module created for the A2000/3000 etc. computer that allow a
passthough
of the video, since an external video switchbox will seriously degrade the
image
quality, as well many people have good MultiSync monitors that can do 15Khz,
or
FlickerFixer Boards and don't see a need to buy another monitor. I consider
this the worst flaw of the card.

The 3D support is non-existant and should have been pushed harder by Phase5.

WARANTY:

Both the Cybervision63/3D and ScanDoubler Have a 12Month Parts and
Labour Warranty (From Date of Purchase), against defective workmanship..

CONCLUSION:
___________

You can see a theme from what I wrote, there is one key issue that would put
me
off recomending the card, and two other issues that are only applicable under
certain conditions, or point of view.

Very Serious Lack of support, Emails go unanswered. Documentaion is Poor
which will force you to call germany. So if you run into a problem prepare to
pay the extra $20+ on the phone bill if you don't live nearby.

I had tossed the Card and Scandoubler in the Closet, and replaced it with 2
Picasso IV's One for the A4000, and One for the A3000. This had nothing
to do with the Cybervision64/3D it is an excellent piece of harware.This was
all because of the faulty scandoubler, at least now it gets good use in the
A2000, with a Digital Switcher I built Myself.

If you Don't have an A4000 you would be better off getting a FlickerFixer,
and the Original CyberVision64 which performs a bit better, and will probably
cost you a bit less.
Also for an extra $20-50 you can get a Picasso IV with a flicker Fixer, and it
works on any Amiga with a VideoSlot.

If you Have an A4000 and don't really mind the the support issue and,
Scandoubled NTSC/PAL then this card with a GOOD 17" or 20" monitor is a
spectacular site to see at 1280X1024@75Hz.

COPYRIGHT:

Knowledge, Words, and this aricle are Free as long as I am credited!

Eytan Kaziberdov
[email-masked]

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